NOCTURNALIST; A Floor Made For Dancing, But Not For Modesty

By SARAH MASLIN NIR; With Anika Chapin and Jed Lipinski.

Published: November 5, 2011

CORRECTION APPENDED

More than art was on display at an after-hours party at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Thursday night. A mirrored dance floor shimmered in the Temple of Dendur, but after a few turns on the floor it became clear to anyone wearing a dress -- and almost every woman was wearing a dress -- that this was a bad idea.

Those women bent on boogieing at the Apollo Circle Benefit, a party aimed at the museum's younger members, did so with knees locked tight (save a few scandalous dancers who pli?before remembering themselves and clapping their knees together, shrieking). One beskirted young woman stood at the mirror's edge, eyeing the dance floor as if it were a pool of lava. ''I wish there was a bridge or something,'' she said.

The theme of the evening was ''POP!''; it was designed by Carolina Herrera and had guests like Ivanka Trump, Seth Meyers and Tinsley Mortimer. A doctor named Karl Hussman ensnared us to be his unwitting wingman. He plopped us next to Arlenis Sosa, 22, a model whom he called the prettiest girl in the room, to do reconnaissance work on his behalf. (We didn't.)

''Did you say anything about me?'' Dr. Hussman asked after our chat with Ms. Sosa. Not really, we responded. ''Ah, I see,'' he said. He paused. ''I'm not on the make or anything.''

In a bedazzled top hat was Timoor Elikbaevich, who explained that this was his fifth party of the evening. (He said he had been invited to 10.)

''I was a back-up dancer for Madonna and N'Sync,'' he said. ''I am a Madonna stalker. You can find out all about me online. I know Oprah.''

We scribbled in our notebook to keep up. ''Why aren't you not recording my words?'' he said. We're writing them, we replied. ''I don't want you to misconstrue what I say,'' he said. We offered to use our recorder. ''That's it,'' he shouted, wheeling. ''This interview is over!''

A Shaky Performance

''Sleep No More,'' the interactive play that takes place over several stories of a converted warehouse building in Chelsea, is spooky. But at a special Halloween night performance, with guests ''dressed to terrify,'' it was like taking in a play amid the ''Eyes Wide Shut'' orgy.

At one point, an actor playing a taxidermist pulled an audience member dressed as Prince Charming (the glass shoe hanging from his sash gave it away) into a secret room. Minutes later, an actor in a nurse's uniform pulled a man dressed like a swan into a little brick tower, then closed the door.

(Nocturnalist's correspondent dressed monochromatically as the ''Gray Lady'' in homage to the fear our presence instills in some publicists.) One surprise: Alan Cumming made a cameo appearance in the show as a sinister doctor, selecting audience members and spiriting them away for private performances in tucked-away spaces. ''In a few minutes, people think you're about to totally make out, and then they're terrified of you,'' he said.

Most were O.K. after his display, he said. But not all. ''Couple of tremblers -- really trembly people, which is kind of shocking sometimes,'' he said. ''That thing is also exciting, that thing sometimes when they meet you and you're famous, they get so excited that they physically shake.'' So what transpired in those trembling, intimate performances? He had them lie down, ''tucked them all in, took their mask off, did a wee dancey bit,'' Mr. Cumming said.

''But basically at the end,'' he continued, ''I vomited a nail into my hand.''

Going Up? Not So Fast

We had a close encounter with Fergie at Nur Khan's Halloween party at the Electric Room on Monday night -- and we have the bumps to prove it. She was dressed like a beauty pageant contestant, the toddler version, and strode up to us as we waited for the elevator.

'' 'Scuse me!'' she chirped in a baby voice. We opened our mouth to speak, just as her tree-trunk thick bodyguard slammed Nocturnalist's correspondent into a wall with one shoulder. The singer's entourage poured into the elevator. She blew us a kiss. The doors closed.

Nice to see you, too, Fergie. There were more-down-to-earth people downstairs. Two glitter-covered aliens. ''Actually, we're partaliens,'' said one. Come again? ''Aliens who like to party,'' she explained. As guests danced to the D.J. Mark Ronson, we ran into Tyson Beckford, dressed as an soldier. ''I think it's important that we support the troops,'' he said. One guest, Marcos Silveira, was dressed in street clothes with a hat that looked like a squashed banana peel. He was a Smurf, he said, adding, ''I couldn't find the blue paint.''

PHOTO: The Temple of Dendur was the site of the Apollo Circle Benefit, a party aimed at younger members of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, on Thursday night. (PHOTOGRAPH BY RICHARD PERRY/THE NEW YORK TIMES)

Correction: November 14, 2011, Monday

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction: Because of an editing error, a report in the Nocturnalist column on Nov. 5 misstated the date of a party at the Electric Room in Manhattan. It was a Halloween party held on Oct. 31, not a pre-Halloween party on Oct. 29.